Tax incentives call to reduce long-term absence

A report produced for Norwich Union Healthcare by Nera Economic Consulting - entitled Sharing the Costs: Reaping the Benefits: Incentivising Employer Investment in Health Care – suggests while long-term sickness of employees is said to cost the economy £13.2bn a year – through loss of earning to business and its impact on the NHS and benefits system – the incentives are weak to get employers to engage with staff at an earlier stage of an illness so changes should be made by the government. More specifically, the research looks at the cost of absence in terms of sickpay, overtime, labour r...